An experimental study of reflected liquefaction shock waves with near-critical downstream states in a test fluid of large molar heat capacity

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Abstract
Near-critical states have been achieved downstream of a liquefaction shock wave, which is a shock reflected from the endwall of a shock tube. Photographs of the shocked test fluid (iso-octane) reveal a rich variety of phase-change phenomena. In addition to the existence of two-phase toroidal rings which have been previously reported, two-phase structures with a striking resemblance to dandelions and orange slices have been frequently observed. A model coupling the flow and nucleation dynamics is introduced to study the two-wave system of shock-induced condensation and the liquefaction shock wave in fluids of large molar heat capacity. In analogy to the one-dimensional Zeldovich–von Neumann–Döring (ZND) model of detonation waves, the leading part of the liquefaction shock wave is a gasdynamic pressure discontinuity (Δ ≈ 0.1 μm, τ ≈ 1 ns) which supersaturates the test fluid, and the phase transition takes place in the condensation relaxation zone (Δ ≈ 1–103 μm, τ ≈ 0.1–100 μs) via dropwise condensation. At weak to moderate shock strengths, the average lifetime of the metastable state, τ ∞ 1/J, is long such that the reaction zone is spatially decoupled from the forerunner shock wave, and J is the homogeneous nucleation rate. With increasing shock strength, a transition in the phase-change mechanism from nucleation and growth to spinodal decomposition is anticipated based on statistical mechanical arguments. In particular, within a complete liquefaction shock the metastable region is entirely bypassed, and the vapour decomposes inside the unstable region. This mechanism of unmixing in which nucleation and growth become one continuous process provides a consistent framework within which the observed irregularities can be explained.